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Thursday, June 19, 2014

If on a winter’s night a traveler: The Three Levels of Inquiries

After posting summary of the first half of the book, I decided not to do the second summary post, but immediately jump to the three stage readings.

Who is the central
character of this book?

It’s
definitely The Reader (and that
includes us all, the readers of this book).

What does the central
character want? What is standing in his way? And what strategy does he pursue
in order to overcome this block?

Reading-wise,
he wants to have a straightforward
novel with clear plot and ending; he reads just for pleasure, to satisfy his
appetite. Unfortunately he keeps stumbling upon unfinished novels, so he confronts
the publisher, the writer, the literary authority;
he travels around the world to get to the novels he desired. Parallel with his
quest of books, the Reader is also attracted to Ludmilla, the Second Reader. He
wants to have her for himself, but there are the writer and the translator who
seem to be involved in her life. He pursues them to get his books as well as to
win his girl.

Who is telling you
this story?

Calvino uses
second person point of view.
Interestingly, he never reveals the name of the protagonist (The Reader), so
actually he wants to address all the readers of his book.

Images and metaphors

There are
several metaphors in those unfinished novels read by The Reader, but the most
distinguished ones are probably:

The void – In the second novel, Irina is
having vertigo when she looks down the void below the bridge. Later in the
book, Calvino repeats this word ‘void’ several times to emphasize the unreality beneath words in books. The
stories have no relation with real things in real life.

The invisible power – The sense of power
or control over a person is dominating the unfinished novels, either from an
organization (like in first novel where the man arriving at the station looking
for a message from ‘the organization’) or a person (Irina over Alex in 4th
novel, or Jojo over Ruedi in 5th novel, and in most of the novels).
I think it represents how readers, without realizing it, are actually
controlled by authors, publishers, and all authoritative agents in literary
industry. The Reader and Ludmilla think they are controlling their own reading,
but in reality they depend on how the author writes; the translator translates,
the publisher prints and binds the book, and so on. One little fault, and that
will affect our reading very much.

Beginnings and
endings

The novel
begins with the narrator asking The Reader to prepare himself on the position
of comfortable reading. He points out that he does not expect anything from the
book he’s about to read (You’re the sort
of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything… You know
that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.) I felt like Calvino
here wants to dictate the Reader how
to behave in reading, and kind of reprimand him on being passive or innocent
towards his reading.

The ending
is a resolution, with different result.
Reading-wise, the Reader did not get the books he intended to read (and he
seems okay with that), but he finally wins Ludmilla’s heart, and marry her.

Do you sympathize
with the characters?

Both the Reader and Ludmilla represent
parts of me, reading-wise. With the Reader, I share his enthusiastic quest for
a more meaningful reading, although in different way. For me, it’s more of analyzing,
philosophizing, and relating the story with real life; whereas The Reader’s
focus is more physically. With Ludmilla, I share her desire to read freely
without being influenced by the author or the institution who produces the
books. In short, I sympathize with both of them for demanding and respecting the freedom in reading.

Does the writer’s
technique give you a clue as to his “argument”—his take on the human condition?

From the way
he hops from novel to novel without ever coming to completion, I think Calvino
suggested that novels can never convey authors’
true intention completely to the readers. There is always gap between the
two, especially when the reader is like Ludmilla or The Reader, who only read
for pleasure; indifference of the author’s intention, or even existence.

And from how
much the Reader struggle from wanting to read a good novel, the literary
industry also has control over readers, though we do not feel it.

What exactly is the
writer telling you?

That reading
is an individual activity. Authors, publishers, translators, or whoever works
in literary industry—and even country or sects—could try to control or persuade
our reading, but we, readers, are free to
haveour own opinion on books we
read. Marana and Flannery want Ludmilla to love them through their writing, but
Ludmilla has her own way of appreciating books, which nobody can change or
interfere.

Do you agree?

I agree that
reading should not only for pleasure seeking or satisfying our desire (to reach
the end). We should dig deeper than the surface of those printed words to get
the author’s message. Because beneath the words—as Calvino said—there’s only
void, unreal, and immaterial. Reading could be meaningful when we relate it with
the real life; the author, the characters, and our present society.

6 comments:

I read this book a few months ago, and really liked it. Your review was excellent, particularly your point about the reader not being passive, but participating in the creation of meaning. I also liked your point about readers not being aware of the extent to which their reading is controlled by the book-publishing industry, which is definitely true, both then and now. :)

Great analysis. I skipped this part of TWEM and was thankful to have finished the book. So I obviously did not get deeply into it. But you did, and you made sense of it for me. It was a unique little story, but I couldn't get into it.